The signal is injected at each transformer. It doesn't pass through them. People have a misconception that the signal is going to ride the powerlines all the way from the power station to the home. It's actually injected into the system at each neighborhood, after the transformer.
Arizona, where we are rolling out BPL, is a little different that a lot of places I've seen. Most power runs underground with visable power poles only in the oldest neighborhoods. Maybe that's how it is everywhere now. I don't get out much. Because of that, the 2 major power companies here have been laying fiber along side the power lines for years. It's just been sitting dark. Now it will be put to use.
You mentioned the "every other house" transformer model. I'm not aware of that. I guess that could cause some problems. Here in AZ, there is 1 or 2 transformers for each neighborhood and their located at the edge.
I work for a company that is rolling out BPL in Arizona. I'm not 100% involved with the project but I get to sit in on a lot of meetings. What follows is my general understanding of how it works.
Currently the power companies have no way of monitoring their grid except for watching for major drops in consumption. Basically, they don't know your power is out until someone from your neighborhood calls them and lets them know.
We install what is basically a low end PC at each transformer which is used to inject the signal for the area covered by that transformer. There are additional apps running on the PC that are constantly communicating back to the power company about the state of the transformer, load, etc. If the node reports a problem or if communication to the node is lost they know there's a problem and can send someone right out. Should result in much higher response times.
Most of these are what I would expect but I don't understand the following:
shadow maggie monkey buster bandit
???. Anyone have any insight as to why these particular words might be popular? Poster said it was for an adult site. Maybe Maggie has something to do with it and that's why that is there. Maybe shadow is there because of geeks who belong to the site.
I feel webmail is insufficient but for different reasons. Mainly the integration with the desktop and other applications:
1) If I click on a "mailto:" link on a website my webmail doesn't open with a new message.
2) If I right-click on a file and select SEND TO | MAIL RECIPIENT my webmail doesn't open with a new message with the file attached.
3) Within Word and Excel I can select FILE | SEND TO | MAIL RECIPIENT or MAIL RECIPIENT (FOR REVIEW) or MAIL RECIPIENT (AS ATTACHMENT). None of these would work with webmail.
I suppose some type of client app could be written that would provide that functionality (or maybe one already has) but until there is, noone at my company would use webmail exclusively. We use it now, but it's used as a way to get e-mail when away from the office and not on VPN or to quickly pull up a message when at someone elses PC.
I'm glad you posted this. I would have modded you insightful instead of funny but this is/. and most readers here think you must be kidding.
I like Ubuntu. I like Linux. I was excited to read the article. I want to hear about successful "Linux on the business desktop" stories. I was let down. Reading through the article all I could think was "what a pain in the ass". I have a Ubuntu desktop running next to me in my office. I installed it with the intention of proving we could run Linux on some of our desktops but have been disappointed over and over.
Windows boxes and software works best for users and administrators of Windows networks. That article actually does a good job proving that. The author then had the balls to mention the money he could save not having to buy Windows and Office. With the time he spent screwing with it he lost money.
I want an article about how a company switched their front ends AND back ends to *NIX and how that was successful for them. Quit trying to integrate Linux desktops into Windows networks. You might be successful but it'll never be more than a hack that will break one day for one reason or another.
It's like a bunch of people are running around trying to prove you can easily eat a bowl of spaghetti with a spoon because spoons are free. Buy a friggin fork or stop eating spaghetti.
My employer provided me with Outlook 2000, which does not have OWA access; only Outlook 2003 does
...OWA doesn't have anything to do with Outlook. It's a web based outlook that has nothing to do with what version of Outlook is running on your PC.
Your statement about OWA and Evolution is the real reason I'm replying. Evolution will work "properly" with Exchange but only if you have OWA enabled. I've played with this quite a bit trying to see if we could use Ubuntu as an desktop OS at our company. IMAP will work to some extent (as described in the article) but not for caledaring and tasks. If you turn on OWA Evloution will use it to connect to Exchange and you get almost a full feature set. Unfortunately, it breaks about once a month for no reason at all which is really frustrating but when it works it works well. Wondering if your experience with it has been the same.
Actually, the article says he's a consultant. He's supposed to spend his time supporting clients of the company not tinkering with his PC. If he did it after hours that's another thing but if he did it on the company dime then he should be held accountable. Maybe if one of their clients was considering moving to linux desktops.
From what I read in the article I would estimate he put about 30 hours into the project. He cost his employer quite a bit of money.
I work for a Telco. My servers, switches, routers, etc. are all located in the "Switch" with all the Telco equipment. I kind of like the setup. The main power supply is DC. We have to convert it back to AC for all the servers that don't have a DC power supply option (and yes, contrary to other posts, running servers on DC still requires a power supply in each box. It's just used for power distribution and stepping down voltages)
One major benefit is not needing battery backup on each server because the entire suite is on a giant battery backup and that's backed up by a generator the size of a semi.
Also, what you said about telco guys and their wiring is absolutely correct. These guys are wiring machines. Makes it nice for me because they run all my wires.
I'm a network admin and not only am I part of the small percentage in our company that has an office, I'm part of an even smaller percentage that has a locking door. For me, it might not be completely necessary but it's desired for 3 reasons:
1) Work space - At any one time I might be working on 2 or 3 laptops and desktops while loading a server or configuring a router, etc. I need the space to set it all up. I have a counter top that runs along 2.5 walls of my office and a long table on the blank wall and it's all often occupied. My office doubles as my shop/lab.
2) Security - I have stacks of laptops, hard drives, routers, switches, etc. stored in my office and with our growth, more coming in every day. It's not that someone couldn't steal this stuff from elsewhere in our facilies, it's just that it's much easier to get to in my office. No unplugging, unbolting, etc. Just grab a stack of laptops and go. I've seen cabinets mentioned in other posts but I have too much stuff going on and if I was in one of our cubes I'd be lucky to fit 1 cabinet.
3) Peace and quiet - Between the useless chatter, relentless phone calls, streaming music and other noises, I can hardly hear myself think out there (cube world). Not to mention the drive through questions. Everybody and their little brother feels the need to stop by my office and ask a question on their way by. I don't mind it all the time. In fact I'm quite sociable, open and helpful but when I'm troubleshooting a tough problem or working on a project I just don't like to be disturbed. I generally deal with user issues in the morning and work on projects in the afternoon and evening. After lunch, when I close my door, everyone knows not to come knockin unless their problem is preventing them from completing their work.
This is for everyone who replied to this comment with something like "Because then the person won't know you know their pin and will go on business as usual".
I have a question: WTF good is a pin number without the card?
The PIN on my card is 1507. My wifes is 1398. There ya go. You didn't even have to hack an envelope. Steal away.
The only way this could be useful is if you already have the card or plan on obtaining it later through some sort of theft. In that case the cards will be reported stolen and deactivated before you can actually get good use out of the PIN.
Who mods this stuff? Informative? Couldn't be more wrong. My company has had a "trial" rolled out in Arizona for the last 2 years. In 6 months we'll be rolling out to our first subset of "non-trial" customers. BPL is alive and well. I live it every day.
Also, Noise and the HAMM operators are a big concern of ours. Notching proved to be ineffective. Current implementation use phase-shifting (or more properly "frequency-shifting") which completely removes the signal from the band that HAM guys operate on. We've had this new technology rolled out at our trial for the last 3 months with excellent results.
Whoever modded this guy as "informative" needs to do the same to this post so people can be "informed" about the actual facts.
But I don't want my search results filtered. Unless your talking about filtering out link scams and others that are trying to achieve higher page rankings. I want all the results returned. Filtering would suggest that they somehow know what I'm searching for. They may think they know, that's what rankings are for.
So, if it is a matter of filtering then Yahoo looses there as well. Filtering - Bad, Ranking - Good
I agree. In one breath people are agreeing with the statement that playing video games gives kids an outlet for their agression and then in the next breath say that football is causing violence and agression in other kids. Wouldn't football be the same type of outlet as playing video games?
So yeah, if you need to have multiple nines in the uptime of your site, then you will need multiple boxes to handles that.
If you want multiple 9's you should be redundant on your *NIX boxes as well. We run Windows 2003 servers, FreeBSD servers, Solaris and Linux. Every mission critical or customer facing service is redundant in some way.
I know *NIX is the greatest thing since Jesus slicing bread but I don't think it can keep hardware from failing.
I'd bet that the first human-equivalent machine intelligence takes 18 years to develop after the first human-brainpower-equivalent CPU is created.
...but researchers ran into problems when they discovered that after 14 years the robots thought they new everything and stopped communicating except for the occasional "I hate you, you're runing my life".
Someone better check these ships for rockets and/or lasers. For $50 million these guys are going to be trying to take eachother out should they pass in orbit.
I've been a heavy computer/network admin for over a decade, have never run a virus checker on my computer and have never been infected. NEVER.
Plenty of my customers have though. Even with a constant barage of warnings and virus checkers running they always manage to infect themselves. Stumps me.
Slashdot Mirror
The signal is injected at each transformer. It doesn't pass through them. People have a misconception that the signal is going to ride the powerlines all the way from the power station to the home. It's actually injected into the system at each neighborhood, after the transformer.
Arizona, where we are rolling out BPL, is a little different that a lot of places I've seen. Most power runs underground with visable power poles only in the oldest neighborhoods. Maybe that's how it is everywhere now. I don't get out much. Because of that, the 2 major power companies here have been laying fiber along side the power lines for years. It's just been sitting dark. Now it will be put to use.
You mentioned the "every other house" transformer model. I'm not aware of that. I guess that could cause some problems. Here in AZ, there is 1 or 2 transformers for each neighborhood and their located at the edge.
I work for a company that is rolling out BPL in Arizona. I'm not 100% involved with the project but I get to sit in on a lot of meetings. What follows is my general understanding of how it works.
Currently the power companies have no way of monitoring their grid except for watching for major drops in consumption. Basically, they don't know your power is out until someone from your neighborhood calls them and lets them know.
We install what is basically a low end PC at each transformer which is used to inject the signal for the area covered by that transformer. There are additional apps running on the PC that are constantly communicating back to the power company about the state of the transformer, load, etc. If the node reports a problem or if communication to the node is lost they know there's a problem and can send someone right out. Should result in much higher response times.
I can't believe I just knowingly followed a link with the intent of looking at a mans bulge. WTF is wrong with me?
I'm one of her colleagues you insensitive clod!!
Most of these are what I would expect but I don't understand the following:
shadow
maggie
monkey
buster
bandit
???. Anyone have any insight as to why these particular words might be popular? Poster said it was for an adult site. Maybe Maggie has something to do with it and that's why that is there. Maybe shadow is there because of geeks who belong to the site.
I feel webmail is insufficient but for different reasons. Mainly the integration with the desktop and other applications:
1) If I click on a "mailto:" link on a website my webmail doesn't open with a new message.
2) If I right-click on a file and select SEND TO | MAIL RECIPIENT my webmail doesn't open with a new message with the file attached.
3) Within Word and Excel I can select FILE | SEND TO | MAIL RECIPIENT or MAIL RECIPIENT (FOR REVIEW) or MAIL RECIPIENT (AS ATTACHMENT). None of these would work with webmail.
I suppose some type of client app could be written that would provide that functionality (or maybe one already has) but until there is, noone at my company would use webmail exclusively. We use it now, but it's used as a way to get e-mail when away from the office and not on VPN or to quickly pull up a message when at someone elses PC.
I'm glad you posted this. I would have modded you insightful instead of funny but this is /. and most readers here think you must be kidding.
I like Ubuntu. I like Linux. I was excited to read the article. I want to hear about successful "Linux on the business desktop" stories. I was let down. Reading through the article all I could think was "what a pain in the ass". I have a Ubuntu desktop running next to me in my office. I installed it with the intention of proving we could run Linux on some of our desktops but have been disappointed over and over.
Windows boxes and software works best for users and administrators of Windows networks. That article actually does a good job proving that. The author then had the balls to mention the money he could save not having to buy Windows and Office. With the time he spent screwing with it he lost money.
I want an article about how a company switched their front ends AND back ends to *NIX and how that was successful for them. Quit trying to integrate Linux desktops into Windows networks. You might be successful but it'll never be more than a hack that will break one day for one reason or another.
It's like a bunch of people are running around trying to prove you can easily eat a bowl of spaghetti with a spoon because spoons are free. Buy a friggin fork or stop eating spaghetti.
Just so people don't get confused...
...OWA doesn't have anything to do with Outlook. It's a web based outlook that has nothing to do with what version of Outlook is running on your PC.
My employer provided me with Outlook 2000, which does not have OWA access; only Outlook 2003 does
Your statement about OWA and Evolution is the real reason I'm replying. Evolution will work "properly" with Exchange but only if you have OWA enabled. I've played with this quite a bit trying to see if we could use Ubuntu as an desktop OS at our company. IMAP will work to some extent (as described in the article) but not for caledaring and tasks. If you turn on OWA Evloution will use it to connect to Exchange and you get almost a full feature set. Unfortunately, it breaks about once a month for no reason at all which is really frustrating but when it works it works well. Wondering if your experience with it has been the same.
Actually, the article says he's a consultant. He's supposed to spend his time supporting clients of the company not tinkering with his PC. If he did it after hours that's another thing but if he did it on the company dime then he should be held accountable. Maybe if one of their clients was considering moving to linux desktops.
From what I read in the article I would estimate he put about 30 hours into the project. He cost his employer quite a bit of money.
I work for a Telco. My servers, switches, routers, etc. are all located in the "Switch" with all the Telco equipment. I kind of like the setup. The main power supply is DC. We have to convert it back to AC for all the servers that don't have a DC power supply option (and yes, contrary to other posts, running servers on DC still requires a power supply in each box. It's just used for power distribution and stepping down voltages)
One major benefit is not needing battery backup on each server because the entire suite is on a giant battery backup and that's backed up by a generator the size of a semi.
Also, what you said about telco guys and their wiring is absolutely correct. These guys are wiring machines. Makes it nice for me because they run all my wires.
I'll go ahead and give you a little.
I'm a network admin and not only am I part of the small percentage in our company that has an office, I'm part of an even smaller percentage that has a locking door. For me, it might not be completely necessary but it's desired for 3 reasons:
1) Work space - At any one time I might be working on 2 or 3 laptops and desktops while loading a server or configuring a router, etc. I need the space to set it all up. I have a counter top that runs along 2.5 walls of my office and a long table on the blank wall and it's all often occupied. My office doubles as my shop/lab.
2) Security - I have stacks of laptops, hard drives, routers, switches, etc. stored in my office and with our growth, more coming in every day. It's not that someone couldn't steal this stuff from elsewhere in our facilies, it's just that it's much easier to get to in my office. No unplugging, unbolting, etc. Just grab a stack of laptops and go. I've seen cabinets mentioned in other posts but I have too much stuff going on and if I was in one of our cubes I'd be lucky to fit 1 cabinet.
3) Peace and quiet - Between the useless chatter, relentless phone calls, streaming music and other noises, I can hardly hear myself think out there (cube world). Not to mention the drive through questions. Everybody and their little brother feels the need to stop by my office and ask a question on their way by. I don't mind it all the time. In fact I'm quite sociable, open and helpful but when I'm troubleshooting a tough problem or working on a project I just don't like to be disturbed. I generally deal with user issues in the morning and work on projects in the afternoon and evening. After lunch, when I close my door, everyone knows not to come knockin unless their problem is preventing them from completing their work.
That's my 47 cents.
This is for everyone who replied to this comment with something like "Because then the person won't know you know their pin and will go on business as usual".
I have a question: WTF good is a pin number without the card?
The PIN on my card is 1507. My wifes is 1398. There ya go. You didn't even have to hack an envelope. Steal away. The only way this could be useful is if you already have the card or plan on obtaining it later through some sort of theft. In that case the cards will be reported stolen and deactivated before you can actually get good use out of the PIN.
MG
Who mods this stuff? Informative? Couldn't be more wrong. My company has had a "trial" rolled out in Arizona for the last 2 years. In 6 months we'll be rolling out to our first subset of "non-trial" customers. BPL is alive and well. I live it every day.
Also, Noise and the HAMM operators are a big concern of ours. Notching proved to be ineffective. Current implementation use phase-shifting (or more properly "frequency-shifting") which completely removes the signal from the band that HAM guys operate on. We've had this new technology rolled out at our trial for the last 3 months with excellent results.
Whoever modded this guy as "informative" needs to do the same to this post so people can be "informed" about the actual facts.
But I don't want my search results filtered. Unless your talking about filtering out link scams and others that are trying to achieve higher page rankings. I want all the results returned. Filtering would suggest that they somehow know what I'm searching for. They may think they know, that's what rankings are for.
So, if it is a matter of filtering then Yahoo looses there as well. Filtering - Bad, Ranking - Good
Mike
I agree. In one breath people are agreeing with the statement that playing video games gives kids an outlet for their agression and then in the next breath say that football is causing violence and agression in other kids. Wouldn't football be the same type of outlet as playing video games?
If you want multiple 9's you should be redundant on your *NIX boxes as well. We run Windows 2003 servers, FreeBSD servers, Solaris and Linux. Every mission critical or customer facing service is redundant in some way.
I know *NIX is the greatest thing since Jesus slicing bread but I don't think it can keep hardware from failing.
I'd bet that the first human-equivalent machine intelligence takes 18 years to develop after the first human-brainpower-equivalent CPU is created.
...but researchers ran into problems when they discovered that after 14 years the robots thought they new everything and stopped communicating except for the occasional "I hate you, you're runing my life".
Works great in IE6. Opens Acrobat Reader to view it.
ooops. my bad. I thought your comment was in reply to another comment about a comment about autom....
:)
forget it. Just ignore my post
I think the argument is whether or not it's part of the "automatic" updates. Not whether or not it can be obtianed via Windows Update.
Service packs are never automatically installed.
Someone better check these ships for rockets and/or lasers. For $50 million these guys are going to be trying to take eachother out should they pass in orbit.
We've seen quite a bit of activity from China lately.
Ever see a movie called Jacob's Ladder? Tim Robbins wakes up so many times in that movie I thought I was going to hurl by the end.
If I remember correctly, He would wake up from a dream withing a dream, within a dream, and so on.
It's been a long time since I laughed that hard. Who would have thought you could have perfect delivery on a message board.
I agree.
I've been a heavy computer/network admin for over a decade, have never run a virus checker on my computer and have never been infected. NEVER.
Plenty of my customers have though. Even with a constant barage of warnings and virus checkers running they always manage to infect themselves. Stumps me.
Mike